Tag Archives: science

It’s a refrain ad nauseam in interdisciplinary circles: “the humanities and the sciences don’t communicate”–“humanists and physical scientists don’t collaborate”–“they don’t understand each other.” It’s true, interdisciplinarity is rare and challenging. But the struggle is our own doing. Socially, intellectually–we’ve become methodological dogmatists. We’ve narrowed what we accept as legitimate, rigorous or trustworthy explanation so much so that anything deviant from material reductive methods is automatically dismissed by physical scientists as flimsy, subjective hand-waving. This attitude toward the humanities has proliferated as we as a society expect more and more that science will answer the values-based and ethical socioecological questions of the day. But descriptive knowledge doesn’t tell us what should be done. We cannot reduce our values to mere facts, try as we might.

Our reductive materialist view of the world has developed in a vacuum from humanity. “Complex systems are best understood when reduced to their moving parts and underlying physical laws,” goes the line. But we’ve spread reductive materialism too far. Now we try to explain even our humanity in reductive and materialist terms. We’ve reduced beauty to retinal photon refraction, consciousness to patterns of brain activity, morality to genetic coding, relationships to virtual profiling, our bodies to labor capital, ecosystems to instrumental services, human beings to Homo economicus, wellbeing and happiness to material resource consumption, and LIVING to life in the market. But what makes us human cannot be reduced. Our humanity cannot be separated from natural systems. And so our understanding and conduct of the relationship between human and nonhuman systems must change. We must take the best from and evolve beyond dogmatic reductive materialism. We must understand complexity and complex systems holistically as well and conduct ourselves as a society accordingly. Otherwise we miss the forest for the trees and lose ourselves. We end up in crisis.

The difficulty, it seems to me, is not that there is a problem in linking human and natural systems. The two have no problem linking. Human systems are natural systems; the former presupposes, or is-a-subset-of, the latter. They are fundamentally inseparable—-yet they are distinguishable. Humans are unique in many ways, so we’re right to distinguish “first” natural systems from “second” human systems. The problem arises when we value the distinct systems hierarchically, rather than in complementarity. The “main problem” isn’t that human and nonhuman systems have trouble linking, it’s that the link—-the relationship—-is assumed to be hierarchical.

There are lots of explanations for why we value the two systems hierarchically. One of those explanations is no doubt related to religion, spirituality, and ideology—-“worldview” in the broadest sense. But ecological degradation has always accompanied human civilization—-even when we were all animists and goddess worshipping polytheists. The Judeo-Christian worldview is generally anthropocentric, but there are stewardship responsibilities that come with the idea of Nature as Creation, so perhaps the transition from immanent to transcendental divinity in the West doesn’t fully explain the modern division. Nor do I think that reverting basic social mythology to some sort of Eco-la-la about mystical oneness and Earth goddesses would resolve the tension of the duality.

In other words, spiritual transition from immanent to transcendental divinity is perhaps correlative, but not the cause of the division between human and nonhuman systems. Ecological decline perennially associated with human habitation didn’t dramatically intensify until the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Granted, the move from a cyclical worldview of history to the linear progressive reading of history that accompanies Abrahamic spirituality paved the way for modern liberalism, but the “divide” between human and nonhuman systems seems primarily an epistemic one. And while the epistemic division may reflect deeper metaphysical beliefs about the nature of human v. nonhuman systems, one could argue that metaphysical beliefs are fundamentally derivative of epistemology insofar as our understanding of what existence is is a function of what we can know about it. But which is more fundamental is perhaps a trivial point.

My position is this: the division between human and nonhuman systems is an epistemic one, best contextualized as originating with the Scientific Revolution. After Descartes’ reductionist project in the Meditations, intellectual Europe ubiquitously adopted reductionism as the primary explanatory method. Everything from the soul to the nature of matter can be explained in reductionist terms (thinking and extension, respectively, according to Rene), or so the story goes. Eventually Cartesian reductionism merged with Hobbesian materialism and thus was born the modern scientific worldview–that natural phenomena is best explained as a great machine reduced to its moving material parts, governed by universal physical laws; the epistemic abandonment of formal and final causation for sole focus on material and efficient causation in natural science.

This is fantastic for explaining nonhuman systems. But human systems have both material and nonmaterial features, and nonmaterial features are harder to reduce and so harder to explain—-even irreducible and unexplainable. Nevertheless the reductive materialism of the Scientific Revolution has pressed forward, collapsing the nonhuman world into esoteric quantum physical mumbo-jumbo. We’ve reduced the universe to theoretical and probabilistic subatomic particles, but we’re no closer to explaining the nature of consciousness, intentionality, beauty, values, ethics, etc. (despite the laudable efforts of neuroscience). Reductive materialism is insufficient to fully explain nonmaterial human aspects of reality, and so the former has developed separately from the other. Material sciences and nonmaterial humanities rarely communicate, if ever, the gap widening now for three centuries.

The divide between human and nonhuman systems is an epistemic one, now codified and institutionalized as contemporary academic “disciplines.” But disciplinarity is central to the neoliberal university model of knowledge production, and so for the sake of efficiency in commoditizing knowledge, human and nonhuman systems seem inevitably bound to remain at explanatory odds. Or at least so as long as reductive materialism is presumed to be the only legitimate method of explaining the world.

A couple weeks ago, my fraternity brother and friend, Blake Rustmann authored a blog titled “On Marriage” articulating his disapproval of non-heterosexuality, dissatisfaction with the state of marriage today, and opposition to U.S. District Judge Terrence Kern’s recent decision to declare Oklahoma’s ban of non-heterosexual marriage—Oklahoma Question 711—unconstitutional. In response, I took it upon myself to counter his claims in support of non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual equality with my own piece, “On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom.”

Naturally, the dialectic must continue! Which brings me to my long overdue response to his response to my response.

On the outset I want to express my respect and appreciation for Blake’s conviction, eloquence, attention to detail, and interest in participating in this discussion. I am proud to call him my friend and fraternity brother. He is one of the kindest, most considerate people I know, and, insofar as who he is is the cumulativetotality of his conscious actions, qualities, and states, he is among the best of people. He just happens to not be right about the metaphysical, ethical, and socio-legal-normative questions examined here.

To enumerate the contentions at hand and show where we’re going before we get started, our debate centers around at least five fundamental divergences: 1) the nature of the self, action, and responsibility; 2) moral relativism and the goodness of non-heterosexuality; 3) the importance of socio-legal and institutional non-heterosexual equality and equity; 4) the idea of teleology in natural phenomena; and 5) the proper role of religion and religious values in society.

Let’s take each in turn.

1) The nature of the self, action, and responsibility

In his original piece, Rustmann argues that it is coherent and reconciliatory to disapprove of non-heterosexual actions—i.e. non-heterosexuality—while not disapproving of members of the non-heterosexual community themselves. I responded that non-heterosexuality is essential to the identities of non-heterosexuals, and that there is no ethical or socio-legal distinction between the two, especially with regard to the regulatory goals of anti-queer rights advocates. Regulating non-heterosexuality amounts to regulating non-heterosexuals themselves because non-heterosexuality is part of who they are. You can’t ethically and socio-legally condemn non-heterosexuality without simultaneously condemning non-heterosexual people and their identities.

In his response to my response, Rustmann then argues that by eliminating the distinction between non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual identity I am inappropriately exempting the non-heterosexual community “from a distinction that applies to the rest of us.” Quite the contrary. I propose no such exemption. The inseparability of action and the self is as much an ethical and socio-legal claim as it is a metaphysical one about the very nature of identity, which, as such, implies a universal account of what the self—the I, the ego, etc.—is.

What we do is an essential and inseparable part of who and what we are as conscious beings. I am something of a Sartrean about the self. The self, as it were, is a thing that we as conscious beings create. Identity is an invention—an object—of consciousness.At the bottom of every “thing” is consciousness—but consciousness is not itself a thing. It is no thing. Consciousness creates “things” out in the world by distinguishing them, including the ego. In other words, consciousness carves up the world with distinctions. Without conscious distinction, there is only nameless being. Consciousness is fundamental in that it experiences the world—consciousness experiences being—and constructs subjective reality by making distinctions in order to cope with existence. Without consciousness to create distinctions—to differentiate between experiences of being—there could be no distinct things. Consciousness must distinguish them. Consciousness, then, in experiencing and making distinctions about the world, distinguishes the self and in doing so constructs it—the I—out of conscious qualities, states, and actions through the process of reflection and synthesis.

The self is the synthetic transcendent unification of our experiences—the qualities, states, and actions of consciousness. It is an object of conscious awareness—a composition of reflective consciousness—an amalgamation of consciousness as being and as a being—and one from which who we are is inseparable. Most fundamentally we are conscious, but who we are—our essence—selfhood—comes after the fact. Action is indistinguishable from who we are because action does not exist in being—as does consciousness—but as one aspect of the conscious experience and of the self. Who we are is an ever accumulating and changing gestalt of what we do. The self is, in that way, transcendent. Not transcendental, but transcendent in the sense that it consists of an infinite number of accumulating aspects. Through the cumulative process of experiencing conscious action, qualities and states, conscious reflection upon them, and finally synthesis, we construct the self. Reflective consciousness ties our conscious actions, qualities, and states together to create the essence of who we are—our sense of “I.” The human creates its self. “Existence precedes essence.”

If we take Rustmann’s view of identity, who we are exists in a void with its essence predetermined and unchangeable by our actions, qualities, and states; for him, who we are is independent of what we do. Only by fundamentally separating the two can we condemn one without condemning the other. The unsavory moral consequence of this separation, however, is that it dismantles the means by which responsibility for action is attributable to the actor: “Condemn my action, not me. Who I am is not what I have done.”

But actions are not responsible for themselves, people are. The two are metaphysically and socio-legally indistinct.

To draw a fundamental distinction between action and actor amounts to little more than an impotent metaphysical trick to skirt accountability. People are held responsible for their actions because we are what we do. If I kill someone in cold blood, I am imprisoned for the act of murder and because I am responsible for killing. It has become part of who I am—ethically, socio-legally, and metaphysically. And insofar as we cannot change the past, our experiences—our conscious qualities, states, and actions—are, so long as consciousness persists, forever a part of who we are. We cannot escape responsibility for what we do.

Rustmann then raises an example and a question:

“For instance, my writings are an action. Jordan disapproves of the opinions that I wrote. Does that mean he disapproves of me as a person? I hope not.”

Here he wants to bolster the distinction between his writing and his identity by arguing that by my logic, if his writing is inseparable from his identity, and if I believe his writing or perspective is wrong or bad, then I must also think he is a bad person. I do not. I do think his written perspective on non-heterosexuality is wrong—or at least not right. I also think it is inseparable from his identity. But this is only one of an infinite number of aspects of his ever-accumulating identity, the cumulative gestalt of which is, I believe, overwhelmingly admirable and commendable. One bad branch does not mean the whole tree is bad—the bad branch just needs attention.

2) Moral relativism and the judgment of non-heterosexuality

Rustmann also argues that because I disparage moral absolutism, I “obviously” consider “any type of non-relativistic moral ideology as ‘oppressive, exclusionary, and discriminatory.’” Indeed, I do consider the ethical condemnation and socio-legal institutionalization of non-heterosexual inequality and inequity an oppressive, exclusionary, and discriminatory agenda. But I am not the strict moral relativist the author wants to paint.

Indeed, radical cultural relativism, if taken in principle to be absolute, yields another form of unacceptable universalism. The idea that, universally, no action can be judged or evaluated outside of the context of the actor’s culture is itself as dogmatic and absolutist as the position that all people should be held to any religious or secular universalistic moral system. Relativism if taken to its logical extent entails that relativists must be relativistic about even relativism as a universal ethical framework. Relativism contradicts itself in that way.

I, in contrast, contend that some actions are so offensive to moral sense and conscience that they cannot be tolerated—non-heterosexuality just isn’t one of them. Terrorism, holy wars, racism, genocide, female circumcision, slavery, sexism, torture, genderism, the rapacious destruction of the natural world, and institutionalized socio-legal inequality and disenfranchisement: these are among the set of intolerable ethical impermissibilities. A relativist could not make such a claim.

In large part, though not universally, I think J.S. Mills harm principle is a good guide for determining ethical and regulatory permissibility and tolerability. Actions that are wholly self-regarding—i.e. actions that pertain to and affect only the actor—are generally, if not always, permissible and should not be regulated, while actions that are other-regarding—i.e actions that pertain to or affect people other than the actor—should be regulated insofar as such actions compromise the liberty or right to freedom from harm of others. There is no strict relativism here. By rule of the Harm Principle, non-heterosexuality is self-regarding and therefore ethically permissible, and the freedom to socio-legally express non-heterosexuality should not be infringed.

3) The importance of socio-legal institutional equality and equity

The author then, contradicting himself again, argues that while he supports laws making non-heterosexuality illegal—e.g. the Oklahoma ban on same-sex marriage, and presumably the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8—he doesn’t “think the government should make laws criminalizing homosexual behavior, nor h[as] [he] ever proposed that.” In reality, however, to support Question 711 and similar laws that condemn and criminalize non-heterosexual marriage constitutes exactly such a proposition.

Perhaps the confusion stems from what follows. There are really two senses of condemnation at work here: ethical and legal. We must remember, what is ethical is not necessarily legal, what is legal is not necessarily ethical, what is unethical is not necessarily illegal, and what is illegal is not necessarily unethical. This is the intersection of the theoretical and the practical—the overlap of ethics and policy.

There are two dialectics of relevance here: 1) what is ethical and unethical (the ethical dialectic) and 2) what should be legal and illegal (the legal-normative dialectic).

Often the two are conflated and treated simultaneously, but it is important to clarify within which dialectic we are engaged and when because they are fundamentally separate and have radically different implications—and we ought to avoid making category mistakes. The ethical dialectic and any condemnation it might entail is theoretical condemnation and affects moral conscience, social perception, or perhaps the state of one’s soul, while the legal-normative dialectic and any condemnation it might entail is practical condemnation and affects literal social liberty and freedoms—i.e. imprisonment, monetary penalty, or socio-legal limits on self-determination.

The debate over non-heterosexual equality occupies the realm of the legal-normative dialectic, but often converges with the ethical. Still, it is two different things to argue, as Rustmann wants to do simultaneously, that 1) non-heterosexuality is unethical, and 2) non-heterosexuality should be illegal. To clarify, I contend that non-heterosexuality is neither unethical nor should it be illegal. Rustmann, however, in arguing that non-heterosexuality is both unethical and should be illegal, misses an important distinction. It is tolerable (though I think misguided) to believe non-heterosexuality is unethical. But being unethical (the ethical dialectic) doesn’t automatically entail that it should be illegal (the legal-normative dialectic). It is consistent and socially tolerable to hold that non-heterosexuality is unethical, but still believe that it should not be illegal. But Rustmann goes a step further. For him, not only is non-heterosexuality unethical, it should also be illegal. This, I believe, is inconsistent with the Harm Principle and ultimately explains his internal contradiction discussed before. Theoretical ethical condemnation of non-heterosexuality may be unenlightened, but by itself must be tolerated because theoretical condemnation does not necessarily entail socio-legal condemnation. But Rustmann and anti-queer advocates don’t stop at the theoretical. They push for socio-legal condemnation in the form of laws like Question 711, DOMA, and California’s Proposition 8. That is intolerable.

We cannot forget humanity’s multi-millennial legacy of socio-legally oppressing non-heterosexuals. Western religion has condemned non-heterosexuality almost unilaterally since the Old Testament. In 20th century America, rulings like Bowers v. Hardwick judicially institutionalized the legality of imprisoning non-heterosexuals for expressing their love and having sex. It was not, and probably still is not, uncommon for non-heterosexuals to lose work or appointments just for being non-heterosexual. Just recently President Putin signed a law permitting the arrest of “gay propagandists” and threatened its enforcement on LGBT athletes of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Not even a week ago India’s judiciary upheld a law criminalizing non-heterosexuality. And gay men are still put to death in the hyper-religious Middle East for no more than being gay. These are not theories. These are the disturbing realities.

4) Teleology disguised as science

In his response to my response, Rustmann also draws several repugnant comparisons between non-heterosexuality and a shocking list of degenerative diseases—in particular: alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Somehow, it seems to him that ethically and socio-legally condemning non-heterosexuality is equivalent to objecting to an alcoholic friend having another drink. This comparison is asinine.

Comparing non-heterosexuality to alcoholism, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia warrants a dramatic face-palm. It is both an equivocation and a category mistake. Alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are degenerative diseases that cause physiochemical and societal problems if allowed to persist unchecked. To compare them as if they’re equivalent is outrageous. Non-heterosexuality is not a disease, it is not a problem for non-heterosexual individuals, and it does not cause problems for society. Period. Nothing else ought need be said about this point to demonstrate its absurdity.

It is clear that Rustmann and I operate from different values systems. By his judgment, non-heterosexuality is bad, wrong, “disordered,” and contrary to human dignity. For reasons explained below, I obviously disagree.

My disagreement raises a fundamental question: From where does his judgment that non-heterosexuality is bad, wrong, disordered, and contrary to human dignity arise? The answer is two-fold: 1) Judeo-Christian values and ethics, and 2) the conflation of teleology and evolutionary function.

The author purports that his condemnation of non-heterosexuality is supported by the dictates of biology. But his reasoning relies upon a series of unsound scientific premises and an implicit assumption and furtive imposition of religious values. Let’s move through each one individually:

Premise 1: “Biology dictates that ‘natural’ sex occurs between a man and a woman.”

Counter-argument 1:Here he has reversed the logical relationship between “biology” and what is “natural.” Put correctly, everything within the purview of biology is natural, but not everything that is natural is within the purview of biology. In other words, to appeal to biology is to automatically admit and assume that the phenomenon in question—non-heterosexuality—is natural. If he wants to claim that non-heterosexuality is unnatural, he contradicts himself by appealing to biology. Biology does not distinguish between “natural” and “unnatural” sex—only kinds of sex, all of which is inherently “natural” by virtue of being within the realm of biological science.

Premise 2: Non-reproductive sex is “disordered.”

Counter-argument 2: Rustmann first defines “a disorder” as “when the purpose of [a] natural act is interrupted.” This definition is immediately problematic insofar as teleology—the idea of purpose—is inappropriate for discussing or explaining natural phenomena. But we’ll return to this point about teleology when I address Premise 3 below. More to the point: the claim that non-reproductive sex is “disordered” is an Augustinian distinction, not a biological one. Biology makes no such distinction. For biologists, non-reproductive sex is not “disordered.” Non-reproductive sex is just non-reproductive sex. Rustmann’s push to categorize non-reproductive as “disordered” vaults clear over Hume’s fact/value distinction without even realizing what it’s done. What of recreational or pleasure-oriented sex, or sex between the infertile or the elderly? Are these “disordered” as well? “Disordered” implies normative and teleological judgment that biologists, in aiming to remain objective, strictly avoid. In reality, the claim that non-reproductive sex is “disordered” is religious judgment, not biological.

It’s also worth noting that the author then makes another cringe-worthy comparison—this time comparing non-heterosexuality to incest and pedophilia. The very notion of such a comparison is just as inane as his prior juxtapositions to alcoholism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and reminisces of Rick Santorum’s appalling claim that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. Absolutely ludicrous. Let’s move on.

Premise 3: There is only one “purpose of sex” and the only purpose of sex is procreation.

Counter-argument 3: For Rustmann, sex is reserved exclusively for reproduction. Procreation is the only “biological purpose of sex.” First of all, it’s clear that here he has conflated the ideas of purpose and function. Evolutionary theory—to which he subsequently appeals—has fundamentally removed the scholastic basis for teleological speculation about natural phenomena. Natural phenomena—being—do not have natural “final causes” or purpose, but function. Purpose is our perception of function. The two shouldn’t be confused. Purpose doesn’t exist out in the world, only function does. Purpose is a human idea applied to natural phenomena.

So we should talk about the functions of sex, not its purpose—as if there could ever be only one. Sex has many functions–reproduction among them—which include the expression of love or lust; the intensification of emotional, physical and spiritual connection; art; pleasure; etc. Non-reproductive sex does not “side step the primary purpose of sex” because there is no purpose of sex, there is only function, and reproduction is only one function of sex.

Nevertheless, the author continues to argue that non-heterosexuality is contrary to evolutionary function and thus is “disordered.” This is an incorrect and narrow reading of evolutionary function. First of all, that non-heterosexual genotypes exist in perpetuity within in our species all but necessarily entails that non-heterosexuality has been naturally selected for. The germane question is not “What is the purpose of sexuality?” as Rustmann puts it, but “What is the function of non-heterosexuality?”

Non-heterosexuality may have several evolutionary functions. First, it seems relevant to reiterate a basic tenant of ecology—diversity improves resilience. In other words, diversity in sexuality may ultimately make humanity as a species more resilient. On one hand, non-heterosexuality stimulates non-heterosexual social bonds that strengthen communities. On the other hand, as Josh Barrow points out, non-heterosexuals may serve a kin-selection evolutionary function by helping to raise the offspring of other family members—making it more likely that other family members will have children and that more children will survive—or adopted children. Finally, non-heterosexuality may be a natural evolutionary response to human over-population—the ultimate driver of the modern ecological crisis—which constitutes an undeniable threat to the perpetuation and survival of our species.

If the author’s concern truly lies in the wellbeing of children, then his interests are actually in direct alignment with non-heterosexuality and the biological fitness improvements—e.g. contributions to child-rearing, population stabilization—they entail for individuals and our species. In other words, evolutionary theory supports exactly the opposite of the author’s interpretation.

We ought do away with the discriminatory idea of non-heterosexuality as biologically “disordered” altogether. If anything, non-heterosexuality is an astonishing and awe-striking example of nature’s profound capacity to re-order itself as is necessary to maintain stability and homeostasis within its biological systems when chronic perturbations (like human over-population and subsequent anthropogenic pressures on the Earth systems) occur. Heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality may actually be best understood as akin to the black and white daisies of James Lovelock’s Daisyworld, existing in an interdependent and reciprocating dynamic stability.

Rustmann claims that his belief that non-heterosexuality is “disordered” is rooted in science, not theology. But this is an attempt to disguise religious values as scientific. His reading of science is undergirded by blatantly religious values and teleological dogmatism contrary to Darwin’s evolution. In short, his interpretation of science is incorrect. Moreover, he altogether ignores the ought/is distinction, imports religious values onto flawed scientific reading, and conflates the ethical dialectic and the legal-normative dialectics insofar as he claims his objection is an ethical one but then argues that society ought to institutionalize anti-non-heterosexual religious values as law (OK Q711, DOMA, etc.).

5) Religion and religious values in society

Within society, recall, there are—among others—two distinct dialectics of relevance here: the ethical and the legal-normative. Religious values are usually permissible in the ethical dialectic—and moreover, I should be clear, I have no inherent objection to faith in religious mythology. Faith in religious mythology is, after all, an especially resilient vehicle for values and ethics that make life feel meaningful and worth living—perhaps even more so than faith in secular mythology.

But in the legal-normative dialectic of the United States—i.e. what should be legal or illegal in the US—we cannot simply ignore Constitutional Law and permit the entrance of religious value. By the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional to establish religious values as law. Freedom of religion does not mean the freedom to force your religion on others. Legislators “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Banning same-sex marriage on the basis of religious values precisely constitutes an unconstitutional establishment of religion. If marriage is an exclusively Judeo-Christian heterosexual institution, then marriage should not be a legal institution, but a religious one, about which, again, the Constitution forbids the legislative establishment.

The author also says he would be fine with civil unions or something of the sort for non-heterosexual couples. But civil unions as a solution to the marriage discrimination problem don’t go far enough, and are, moreover, unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Ultimately, civil unions for non-heterosexuals are a mere façade of socio-legal equality. Civil unions to side-step the marriage discrimination problem is no better than a revitalization of Separate But Equal doctrine pertaining to non-heterosexuals. And just as Separate But Equal was wrong regarding race, so too is it wrong regarding sexuality and genderism. If Rustmann wants to reserve “marriage” for heterosexuals, then, legally, as far as the government is concerned, every marriage should be no more than civil union and should be equally available to all adult citizens of any gender or sexuality.

In yet another strange and furrowing turn of argument, the author also contends that non-heterosexuals already are socio-legally equal and that “the definition of marriage should not be changed […] to any other definition.”

“LGBT people do have socio-legal equality,” he argues. “They are perfectly welcome to marry just like any other adult person. However, marriage requires one man and one woman. If they don’t want to be joined with a person of the opposite gender, then they should not get married.”

This sort of exclusionary criterion for legal matrimony is obviously not equal. Marriage equality does not mean the freedom to join with a person of only the opposite gender. It means the freedom to join with a person of your choosing. Limiting that choice to a person of the opposite gender is a blatant, harsh, arbitrary, and capricious limitation of that freedom. Moreover, insofar as the author opposes changing the definition of marriage, laws like Oklahoma’s Question 711, DOMA, and California’s Proposition 8 do exactly that; they change the definition of marriage to explicitly exclude non-heterosexual couples. This is not freedom, and it is not equal.

Freedom is a fundamental value about which Rustmann and I likely both agree. In other words, freedom–the conservation of personal liberty, autonomy, and self-determination—is important. But for him, freedom comes with an asterisk. Freedom with regard to marriage is reserved for heterosexuals—even more so, fertile heterosexuals willing to “on-record declare that they are open to having children.” Excluding non-heterosexuals, the infertile, the elderly, or those uninterested in procreation from the freedom to marry who they love if they so choose is outright antithetical to freedom. It seems all but obvious that, for freedom’s sake, it is important that allies of the non-heterosexual community continue to contest pieces of legislation like Question 711 and those who support them.

Discourse as optimism

As enumerated toward the top, this debate centers on several fundamental divergences about perennial philosophical questions. By definition, perennial philosophical questions are irresolvable in an absolute sense. But discourse is itself reason to be optimistic. We ought regularly and openly subject our views to the scrutiny of others. Only when we can amiably, and with mutual respect, engage in the process of open public dialogue will we be able to ameliorate the tensions and problems of society. Indeed, this responsibility falls to all generations, but I am especially confident that the present rising generation—we Millennials who will soon ascend to seats of power in the world and control, to what extent we the can, the trajectory of humanity—will be able to make a difference. Of course the extent to which we can control the human condition is quite limited, but some social and political aspects of human life are within our purview. And I rest with a hopeful assurance that we as people, if ultimately unified by being human together, are open-minded, thoughtful, discursive, respectful, tolerant, and politically engaged enough to respect and preserve the socio-legal freedom and equality of all people—not despite, but for their differences.

I am conservative. But I am not a Republican. Why? Because a large faction of today’s GOP is desperately confused about what being conservative really means.

What does being “conservative” mean?

In fact, much of the United States seems confused about what it means to be “conservative.” The confusion is understandable, but the result is a frightening Orwellian conflation and dramatic oversimplification of rhetoric that seriously compromises the integrity of our political system.

Most presume that being conservative means being Republican. Likewise it’s often presumed being an environmentalist means being “liberal” and thus a Democrat. But these presumptions are erroneous and egregious.

Not all conservatives are Republican, and certainly not all Republicans are conservative. The religious fundamentalist, anti-environment, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-women, anti-healthcare agendas of much of today’s radical Republican Party are actually hyper-liberal in some important ways.

On the other hand, the secular, pro-environment, pro-gay, pro-science, pro-women, pro-healthcare platforms of many Democrats are ultimately rather conservative.

Being conservative, in a pure sense, means believing in conservation on two main fronts: 1) the conservation of individual liberties and self-determination and 2) the conservation of natural, human, and financial resources. The former amounts to protecting individual freedoms from government overreach—i.e. small government—while the latter pertains to minimizing the financial, environmental, human health, and international risks we take as a society.

It’s also important to mention that being conservative also means being in favor of free markets in a relative sense—but this idea is ultimately subsumed by the principle of conserving resources. And it’s only in a relative sense because no one takes the idea of an absolutely free market seriously anymore. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Anti-Trust Act, worker’s rights, emergency services like Police and Fire Departments, the Military, and the regulation of the financial industry are staples of our prosperous modern society—and are, in principle, socialist institutions. But no one questions their importance or goodness anymore.

Being in favor of “free markets” really means being in favor of efficiency—which in essence means conserving resources. The laws of supply and demand that govern “the free market” naturally produce efficient outcomes, otherwise known as the equilibrium price at which sellers should sell their goods and buyers should buy them. Prices represent real resources, so buying and selling goods at market equilibrium means conserving resources. Clearly this is conservative—but it’s not necessarily Republican.

The idea that free markets will produce efficient outcomes assumes that prices represent true cost, but we know that in many instances today this isn’t the case. Costs to the nonhuman environment and human psychology are often omitted from pricing schemes, as are costs to future generations and distant populations. True cost is also often obfuscated by government subsidization.

Fossil fuels, for example, would be vastly more expensive if costs to future generations, costs to the nonhuman environment, and costs to distant populations were taken into account when determining price—and government subsidies help keep the wool pulled over our eyes by further reducing the direct costs of fossil fuels for consumers. If the price of fossil fuels represented true cost, renewables would be far more competitive than they are, and in turn we’d be consuming far fewer fossil fuels to sustain our energy-intensive way of life. In other words, we’d be conserving more of our fossil fuel resources and conserving environmental quality. Insofar as Republicans support the continued subsidization of fossil fuels, they are certainly not being conservative about the conservation of resources or the environment. It takes a profound level of cognitive dissonance or hypocrisy to call oneself “conservative” and then simultaneously support federal subsidies for one of the most profitable industries in human history. Democrats who support subsidizing fossil fuels aren’t being conservative either, but Democrats generally don’t campaign on conservative rhetoric.

Hyper-liberal Republicans

Somehow, baffling as it may be, Republicans today have convinced the country that being reckless with the environment, opposing women’s and gay rights for religious reasons, taking enormous financial risks (e.g.—paying for wars with credit, forcing a federal budgetary shutdown, deregulating the financial industry, etc.), cutting funding for scientific research while increasing the government’s regulation of scientists, and precluding the provision of health insurance for a huge segment of the workforce are conservative ideas. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Being “conservative” in its historical and etymological sense is more akin to being precautionary or risk-averse about whatever issue is at hand, e.g. – the limitation of individual freedoms by the government, environmental quality and protection, technoscientific progress, etc., than it is to being Republican. In fact, many of today’s Republicans are actually hyper-liberal when it comes to some important issues.

Environmental conservation is conservative

Environmental conservation is a fundamentally conservative agenda. Being conservative about the environment means conserving natural resources and minimizing the environmental risks we take as a society by taking precautionary measures. Preserving biodiversity and natural land conditions makes ecosystems more resilient to changes in the environment—e.g. climate change—which transitively makes human civilizations that are part of those ecosystems also more resilient. Environmental protection is both conservative and in our best interest insofar as conserving environmental quality is both good for us and good in itself.

Sustainability, renewable energy resources, and wilderness conservation are all fundamentally conservative positions in that they conserve natural resources and the state of the natural world. Despite the fact that the EPA and several hallmark environmental statues were passed by Republicans, environmental protection couldn’t be further from most Republican platforms today. The problem is that many of today’s Republicans talk as if being pro-environment is synonymous with being anti-business or anti-economy.

In reality, even command-and-control environmental regulation incentivizes innovation and ultimately conserves the very natural resources upon which business builds itself. Without natural resources, business would have nothing to work from. Moreover, the need today for environmental limitations on corporate freedom (i.e.—environmental rights) is just as obvious as was the need for labor rights during the Gilded Age and early 20th century. Certain human and environmental abuses and exploitations by unregulated industry are simply unacceptable by any modern standard of justice.

Opposing women’s and gay rights is not conservative

Republicans generally oppose same-sex marriage and abortion rights for religious reasons. But while these oppositions may be traditional, they certainly aren’t conservative. Setting aside the fact that legislating religious values is illegal and unconstitutional in this country, regulating away people’s freedoms—whether that be the freedom to marry who you love regardless of gender or the freedom to control your own reproduction—is big government by definition.

When it comes to issues as private as what happens in our bedrooms and within our uteri, Republicans today actually advocate flagrant government invasions of personal privacy and freedom—and think they can get away with calling themselves “conservative.” In fact, they’re just the opposite. Whether for religious or secular reasons, the limitation of individual liberty by the government is a liberal agenda.

Religious dogma aside—when it comes to abortion rights, being conservative actually means conserving women’s rights to control their own bodies, putting self-determination over and above the government’s right to dictate women’s lives. Abortion is taking a life (if life doesn’t begin at conception, then when?)—but it should be legal and it should be rare.

Likewise, same-sex marriage is actually both conservative and traditional. It may not be part of the Christian tradition, but Christianity is not the only relevant tradition pertaining to marriage. Legalizing same-sex marriage means conserving and protecting the rights of all citizens to deviate from heteronormative sexuality from big government. Moreover, same-sex marriages represent monogamy—a traditional conservative value. Banning same-sex marriage, on the other hand, as many Republicans have sought and some succeeded, is an obvious big government move.

Health insurance is conservative

While the Affordable Care Act may create a government mandate, its purpose is ultimately a conservative one. Insurance is a fundamentally precautionary endeavor. Insofar as being conservative means being precautionary about risks—human health and economic alike—taking public action to protect the health of our citizens and thus our workforce works on both fronts. At the end of the day, national health insurance means safeguarding both the health of our citizens and the strength of our economy (considering how much labor is lost to otherwise treatable illness).

Moreover, the argument that we “shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s healthcare” doesn’t hold water. By buying into any insurance plan—public or private—we are, by definition, paying the bills of our provider’s other patrons whenever we aren’t using our insurance. What’s more, hospitals are already legally required to treat emergency room patients regardless of their financial status, and when those who can’t pay receive treatment, the costs are distributed to the rest of us. If anything, we’ll conserve both human health and economic resources by making sure that everyone has health insurance. Health insurance is conservative. And let’s not forget that we are all legally obligated to have car insurance and no one thinks that’s a bad thing.

Being anti-science, anti-education is not conservative

Finally—and I talked about this at some length in Congress’ assault on knowledge—if being conservative means reducing financial risks, then it’s also safe to say that being conservative about how we invest our nation’s money should mean making safe investments. In contrast, the anti-science anti-education positions personified by climate science-denying, NSF-defunding zealots like James Inhofe and Lamar Smith are polar opposites of safe-investment logic.

Scientific research and public education are among the safest investments society can make. The benefits of an educated workforce are clear. Educated workers are likely to be more efficient, more innovative, more industrious, more entrepreneurial, and more promotable. Likewise, the returns on investment in scientific research are often immeasurable and unforeseeable. Scientific progress is piecemeal, serendipitous, experimental, and unpredictable. While scientific progress can be twisted to serve evil purposes, the positive social gains of scientific R&D are all too obvious. Yet Republicans today seem bent on imposing dramatic cuts to science and education funding, while simultaneously increasing regulatory strictures on scientists and educators; the Inhofe-Smith agenda smacks of big government and flies in the face of safe-investment logic.

Reclaiming conservativism

Many Republicans today are not conservative. In many cases, the Republican Party seems to be a strange blend of hyper-liberal value-driven anti-science religious fundamentalism (“let’s legislate away women’s and gay rights, defund and over-regulate the NSF, and deny the simple physics of climate science!”) and radical xenophobic neoliberal anti-environment social Darwinism (“let’s disenfranchise the poor, minorities, and immigrants—who cares if they get sick?—and do away with as many environmental protections as possible!”). In no way are these conservative positions. And in no way should many of today’s Republicans be allowed to call themselves conservative. If anything, the secular, pro-environment, pro-gay, pro-women, pro-healthcare, pro-science politicians out there should reclaim the word “conservative” for true conservatives and true conservativism. Let’s get it together, humans.

The image below is one of four precipitation models published by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) that together forecast extreme global drought less than 50 years from now as a consequence of climate change. What follows illustrates predicted global precipitation levels in 2060-2069 assuming a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario as defined by the International Panel on Climate Change. Moderate.

Precipitation Model with Climate Change: 2060-2069

Take a moment to let all the purple, red, and yellow sink in. These are Dust Bowl conditions and worse. Take another moment.

It is difficult to emphasize enough the gravity of this predicted drought. We should all keep the above image in mind when we consider the value of water. Water is fundamental to the existence of life as we know it. Not just human beings. All life on Earth. For obvious utilitarian and deontological reasons, by the land ethic and the difference principle, by the precautionary and proactionary principles, and by our natural moral sense, water is of the highest non-arbitrary value and it is our responsibility as constituents of the human world and of the Earth itself—if we even entertain such a distinction—to do everything in our power to prevent and prepare for this possibility.

Pause to consider what it would mean for governance, for geopolitics, for the world if we fail to curb climate change beyond this moderate GHG emissions path and simultaneously 1) fail to implement and enforce the universal human right to water as recognized by 122 countries of the UN in 2010, and/or 2) consent to the privatization of water resources by multi-national corporations. I, for one, would not welcome our new hydroverlords.

Water resource management, conservation, and preservation will likely fall into their own compartmentalized regime complexes—as discussed by Keohane and Victor—fragmented from other initiatives focused on mitigating and adapting to the various impacts of climate change. According to Keohane and Victor, there’s reason to be optimistic about the capacities of this regime structure. But simply adapting to new conditions of water scarcity equates to treating the symptom rather than the disease. While adaptation is absolutely necessary, we must simultaneously confront climate change at its source: human greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.) and the several positive feedback cycles that global warming entails.

Confronting climate change means one of two things (and maybe both, but probably not—the former would render the latter largely unnecessary and the latter would likely preclude the former). We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions through 1) an immediate significant reduction in energy consumption or 2) a techno-scientific revolution in renewable energy, energy storage, energy transmission, transportation, agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, and architecture.

Coupling either approach with reforestation and afforestation projects would be a good idea too, especially considering the Brazilian government’s recent report that deforestation in the Amazon has actually gotten worse since May of 2012.

In all likelihood, the future holds an increase in energy consumption, not a decrease, so we must—at some level—prepare ourselves to rely on faith in Julian Simon’s infinite resource of the human mind to spark the large-scale techno-scientific advances that the climatic consequences of our industrial behavior demand. We must have faith in progress, despite the paradox therein. A daunting task, to be sure, but we have little choice as we have collectively agreed, both implicitly and explicitly, that the Good Life is an energy intensive one. The climate challenge is upon us. If we are to progress, we must progress toward sustainability—and hopefully to a future with more water than NCAR has predicted. Let’s get it together, humans.

Western culture today—-traditionally and in the popular sense—-is rife with apocalyptic narratives. Our fascination with end-times is, on one hand, couched in a history of Manichean religious conviction, and on the other, a new symptom of our growing disillusionment with modernity. Democracy, capitalism, globalization, science, and technology—-the many arms of the project of progress—-have failed to rid the world of evil as we imagined they would. Fairness, equality, standing, mastery over nature, control over our destinies—-all were promised, but delivered only piecemeal if at all.

Now we begin to taste the bitter fruit: that “modern” social orders are no more immune to the undesirable aspects of human nature than those of our “ancient” counterparts. Modernity has, in many ways, served only to amplify the human capacity for evil and to exacerbate the very problems we sought modernization to remedy.

In our disillusionment with modernity we revert to an older faith—-a religious solidarity grounded not in messy reality, but in the irrational belief that beneath the chaos of nature there exists a greater universal order to which human beings are specially attuned, giving us status above and above the rest of the natural world—-that it rests upon our shoulders to change the course of history.

The grand scheme to bring paradise to all, while successful in privileging a few with enormous wealth, has meant and continues to mean poverty and geo-political subjugation for many—-many of whom reside in the third world or global south and never stood to benefit from modernization in the first place. The immediate social impacts of economic exploitation in tandem with the long-term environmental effects of resource extraction, including local pollution and non-local consequences such as climate change and all that climate change entails for sea-level, food production, and habitability, amounts to a paradox of sorts: our pursuit of progress—-our forward-looking idealism—-has condemned the very future we sought to enrich to lives of hardship.

And so in our shock, in our dissatisfaction, we reflex to eschatology. We foretell and therein help to ensure a prophesy of inevitable conflict. A great war between Good and Evil to accomplish through violence what progress could not. The apocalyptic genre is popular not arbitrarily, but because we sense, and in some sadistic cases, likely expect, that something of the sort will play out because we believe that without a dramatic purifying event—-an epic triumphant narrative—-history is destined to repeat itself without any hope of breaking free from our Sisyphean condition. The truth is that the former is far more likely than than the latter. Good will never triumph over Evil because both are essential to what it means to be human. Both are a matter of perspective and construction, culture and habit, perception and preconception, all of which further ensures the longevity of both ideas so long as humans are around.

The fate of the world does not rest on human shoulders. Life will continue long after the human animal is gone, regardless of our footprint. Albeit, we may render the planet entirely inhospitable to ourselves and other sensitive creatures, but life will go on in some form. To suppose that life on Earth somehow depends on the human struggle between Good and Evil is simply an irrational and self-aggrandizing exercise of humanistic narcissism. While we may view our role in nature through dichotomous lenses, one side destined to win out over the other, in reality ours is but one of many animal cycles that will culminate not in glorious victory, but in gradual speciation and extinction.

Last month, half of Congress decided that political science isn’t worth NSF funding unless it advances economic development or national security. Imagine, politicians making it more difficult to study politics. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and the 72 other senators who voted for the bill seem to have forgotten that knowledge is the foundation of the economy and the root of our security. But the congressional assault on knowledge does not stop at political science. Science itself is now the target.

Under the guise of impartial austerity, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has drafted a bill—ironically named the “High Quality Research Act” (HQRA)—to replace the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) peer review process with an arbitrary value-latent euphemistic circumlocution of funding criteria. Instead of peer reviewing the broader impacts and intellectual merit of scientific research to decide what projects deserve funding, Smith would rather cut the NSF budget and micromanage.

(FTA): “Specifically, the HQRA draft would require the NSF director to post on NSF’s website, prior to any award, a declaration that certifies the research is:

1) ‘…in the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science;

2) … the finest quality, is groundbreaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large; and

3) …not duplicative of other research projects being funded by the Foundation or other Federal science agencies.’

NSF’s current guidelines ask reviewers to consider the ‘intellectual merit’ of a proposed research project as well as its ‘broader impacts’ on the scientific community and society.”

Regarding HQRA’s first criterion: Is there a nefarious ploy playing out within the scientific community to stagnate national health, prosperity, welfare, or security? Progress in science is a bulwark for national security, so shouldn’t we increase NSF’s budget and make funding more, rather than less, available? Innovation takes freedom. So unless Smith (et al.) can clearly identify other-regarding harm that stems from NSF research, national policymakers should not furtherlimit, i.e. regulate, innovators freedom to innovate. If anything, HQRA would stifle innovative liberty.

To the second criterion: Not all science can or should be “groundbreaking.” Scientific advance is piecemeal. Some research is groundwork for groundbreaking discovery. Think of outwardly banal research like infrastructure: the state must invest in roads before sports cars can cruise. Roads might not be flashy, but they are necessary—and their construction is actually profound when studied in any depth. The seemingly insignificant of today is the foundation for tomorrow’s profundity.

To the third criterion: Duplication is essential to the very nature of science. “Groundbreaking” results should be duplicable. Scientific redundancy hedges against fraud. If results are neither duplicable nor duplicated, how can we tell what research is trustworthy? Precluding scientific duplication de jure strikes me as creating a quack haven. Unless HQRA sponsors intend to protect quackery, stipulating non-duplication is nonsense. More cynically, HQRA’s non-duplication clause would shrink publicly funded competition for “science” advanced by wealthy private political interest groups—re: Oreskes, Conway, & Fox’s concerns about climate change deniers and frackademia.

HQRA smacks of big government—and given its Republican sponsors, libertarian hypocrisy. Congress should not decide what science is worth doing. Naturaldemand generated within the scientific community should guide research priorities—the invisible hand of the scientific marketplace, in a sense. If Congress shouldn’t “pick winners and losers” in business, why should it in science? Scientists, not Congress, should be the authority on what science is worth doing.

HQRA constitutes an arbitrary imposition of its sponsors’ beliefs pertaining to the value of science—the value of knowledge—in society and policymaking. If HQRA sponsors want to debate the value or proper role of science in society and policymaking, then we should explicitly talk about those values and beliefs. We should discuss the principles underlying the policy. Smith (et al.) should not pretend their motivation is financial. To frame HQRA as a fiscal issue insults public intelligence.

We’re talking about an annual NSF budget of less than 7 billion dollars, people ($6.9B appropriated in FY2013—cut down from the full $7B in FY2012). The US spends $7 billion on defense every three days. Not that defense spending isn’t money well spent, but let’s keep things in perspective when discussing national financial expenditure—and might I reiterate the importance of scientific progress to national defense. NSF’s budget is not the source of US financial woes. In fact, scientific research is among the safest of investments.

Science policy should build roads and get out of the way—unless there are obvious risks of harm related to experimentation, which by rule of the harm principle, can and should be regulated. Scientific innovators do their best work when free to experiment, free to fail without accost, and free to prune the mysteries of the mundane. Of course, freedom means funding. But we, the people, provide that funding via taxes—NSF funded scientists included. We deserve sound public investment with high rates of return. Science satisfies both.

Congress is constitutionally empowered to appropriate the national budget, but to do so on the basis of arbitrary values and beliefs disguised as objective financial necessity is morally questionable at best. Congress is not a group of generous feudal benefactors with absolute prerogative over we peasantry as it seems to have forgotten. Our representatives must be held accountable and to a higher standard of moral sense, which this recent assault on science—on knowledge—offends.

Science is iconic of American idealism: exploration, new frontiers, adventure, accomplishment, mystery, unexpected wealth, innovation, freedom and progress. Unless Congress is in the business of curtailing freedom and progress, the Coburn and Smith policies are a mistake. For all our sakes, Coburn’s anti-political science amendment should be rejected in the House and Smith’s anti-science policy should never see the congressional floor. But only time will tell. Progress in science may be a fact, but progress in ethics is often phantasmal.

As a follow up to the Science Progress article I co-authored with Dr. Adam Briggle earlier this July, we have written another short piece that again explains the subject of our study, Technology and Society: Fracking Ideology, and requests reader participation. You can find the article linked here and above.